Centre Region: ANTIC training mayors, IT personnel to improve decentralisation.

The training which opened yesterday on the theme: “Local development in the era of era of digital transformation”, officials said, also seeks to improve public service delivery via the integration of ICTs in daily council operations. 

Speaking as he officially opened the capacity building seminar, the Director General, DG, of ANTIC, Prof. Ebot Ebot Enaw disclosed that of the 71 councils in the Centre Region, “barely 18 own websites, representing 25.3%, and just 42 councils are in possession of Facebook pages”.

According to the ANTIC Director General, even though some councils have made efforts to create social media pages, “none are verified, thus exposing them to risk of cyberattacks such as impersonation and identity theft”.

Why the training?

On the importance of the training, Prof Ebot Ebot said: “The idea here is to train ICT staff of the council, equip them with the skills needed to effectively use the resources put at their disposal within the framework of the decentralisation process”.

He sounded positive that skills acquired during the seminar will help increase the presence of councils online and improve their use of ICTS. Prof Ebot Ebot stated that ANTIC remains fully committed to supporting councils in verifying their online platforms to enhance security, credibility, and authenticity.

The DG disclosed that in the organisation of the training, ANTIC is partnering with other institutions, amongst them the Ministry of Decentralisation and Local Development, the Special Council Support Fund for Mutual Assistance, FEICOM; Community Driven Development Programme, PDND; National Civil Status Registry, BUNEC; Local Governance and Resilience Communities Project, PROLOG.

Going by the ANTIC boss, the partnership underscores the importance of collaborative efforts in advancing digital transformation at the local level.

The Mbankomo seminar is featuring presentations and discussions on a number of themes, which include; the development of IT Master Plans, building secure information systems, the digitalisation of civil status registers, ICT project funding, change management and ICT project management cycle. Officials noted that there will also be an assessment of the ICT needs of councils in the Centre Region. 

The Mayor of Dzeng Council in the Nyong and So’o Division, Ayi Monique epse Nkamgna saluted the training. Ayi said “after this training, we will have a lot to do in our council. We already started building a website but at one moment, we faced a lot of difficulties and abandoned it. But with this training, we will relaunch it and hope that by September, it will be up and running”.

 At the level of the Dzeng Council, she said there have been doing a lot which will now be shown to, “the world and this can only be possible with online presence”.

Context of building capacities

The ANTIC Director General told reporters that the training designed for mayors and council IT personnel in the Centre Region, iss the sixth edition of a nationwide capacity building seminar on Information and Communication Technologies, ICTs for municipal councils.

“We have been to five other regions and when you look at the progress made in those five regions, you realise that their online presence is more significant than what we have in the Centre Region,” Prof Ebot Ebot said.

He went on to add that: “This is because we have sensitised them and put tools at their disposal which we have developed to secure their information systems, in a bid to guarantee the availability and security of the services they put online and also the confidentiality of their administrative documents which today flood the social media,” 

He said since the training kicked off, ANTIC has trained IT personnel of 159 councils on the integration of ICT in view of fostering local governance. 

According to the ANTIC boss, the previous sessions provided ANTIC with the opportunity to offer technical support to councils in developing and implementing several key projects.

This, he said, includes the development of IT Master Plans for the Bafoussam City Council and the East Regional Council; implementation of ICT projects in the Ebolowa City Council and Lokoundje Municipal Council as well as the securing of the National Civil Status Registry platform in pilot councils of Diamare Division in the Far North Region and Wouri Division of the Littoral Region using the public key infrastructure.